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Anything of Bullfrog belongs to EA. Startopia's rights belong to Eidos. You MIGHT be able to find someone from Mucky Foot that still has the assets and code because they just simply shuttered themselves- but you'd have to get Eidos to sign off on that. Heh... Just because a studio's no-more, doesn't mean you're going to get an easy shot at a game.

yeah i know. it's not just a matter of finding the ex-developers, but also figuring out where did the code and copyrights transfer to.

Wing Commander

I suggest you revisit this property. EA Had backup tapes of Origin Systems Inc. If you can get permission from EA to use the contents of the tapes. The guys who run http://www.wcnews.com can provide you with copies. They recently went into EA Mythic and went through the tapes/cdrom archives copying off as much stuff as they could get their hands on. THERE WAS SOURCECODE to games in there. Including code to unreleased titles. I myself am in possession of some sourcecode elements of Wing Commander: Prophecy (Wing Commander 5). My advice is to contact EA first. WCNews.com will be willing to help you (they love the games and all platforms they exist on) but only if the effort looks serious and it can get EA approval. If you're lucky you could get the code to 13+ titles from that archive alone not to mention a bunch of Ultima games. They did find code to all sorts of things in there. Anyway the main point is. EA has abandoned those titles. They may allow you to port them but EA has no idea what they are in possession of at the moment. They basically shoved all the Origin stuff in a big box and put it in a warehouse. Please look into this more. It's probably very feasible.

Real commercial Linux games are games that don't require you to buy a Windows version, using WINE or downloading an installer, but games you can buy and then just install and play it.

Games like Doom 3, Quake 4 or Prey are no real Linux games, because you still have to buy the Windows version and downalod an installer.

Games released by LGP, Runesoft or Loki are real Linux games.

Originally Posted by Svartalf

(Not directed at you...)
Having said that, if you're interested in seeing things like that, you need to be honest with yourselves and buy the titles in question, including the X3 title already published. Doesn't matter if you've bought it for Windows in a past life. It's a differing SKU. The industry isn't formed with what anyone calls "common sense". The fact that iD still seems to produce it for Windows with an unofficial "patch" is unusual. Epic seems to have quit that practice and BioWare hasn't done any more than NWN that way- more because of publisher interference than anything else that I can tell. You buy the game for the platform you want to run on it.

If you want Linux games, you have to BUY them. Otherwise we have to be visibly larger than the Mac userbase in a way that's shown in IDC type figures- which won't happen for a long time yet to come because they measure userbase in "units sold" instead of what is actively being used. MS' figures are dead wrong- you can take about 10% of the market MS claims to have and apply it to the Linux/*BSD side of things because they claim 'shipped' and for every non DIY Linux machine, there's a concomitant Windows install claimed in those figures that's just not accurate anymore. Buying Linux games gives the publishers and studios numbers that they can show to the big boys to get better deals.

You're so right and that's the reason why I've bought the Linux version of Jack Keane on release date, although I already owned the Windows version of Jack Keane (also bought on release date). So I bought the same game two times for the full price. I really don't mind to pay for a second time, because this is a completely different release from another publisher on another platform. In my opinion it's very important to buy the Linux version if you already own the Windows version, because othetwise the big companies would say: "See how many Windows versions are sold, but no one buys the Linux version. It's just not profitable to release games for Linux. It's a bad idea to release games for Linux."

I also hate WINE for this same reason. Using WINE people can buy the Windows version for a few Dollars / Euros / Pound and play the game on Linux. A lot of people won't buy the Linux version, because they think it's too expensive. They only look at the price and see the price of the Linux version is eight times as high as the price of the Windows version, so they buy the Windows version to run the game in WINE. This is the worst thing a user of the Linux platform can do. People, this means another sale for the already too populair Windows platform and another lost sale for the Linux platform! All of those Windows games played through WINE are counted as "games which are played on Windows". Nobody knows you play it on Linux, those big guys think it's played on Windows and count it as such.

Another thing: Why would a developer ever think about releasing games for Linux? Why should they put any money and effort into releasing their games for Linux? Users of the Linux platform got WINE and they can run the games using WINE. Why should a developer put any money and effort into releasing teir games multiplatform if they can also develop their games only for Windows and let the community of WINE do all the work for free. Users of the Linux platform will just buy the Windows version and play the game using WINE. Result: The developers still sells his games to users of other operating systems, but doesn't have to put any money and effort into it. Microsoft keeps saying: "See how populair our operating system is. See how many games are sold for our platform. To make any money you have to develop your games for Windows, other platforms aren't profitable."

In my opinion WINE is a bad piece of software that doesn't do any good to Linux. It only makes gamers buy Windows versions and thus making the Windows platform more populair. I've never used it and I won't be using it. I want to have software that runs native on Linux and buying Windows versions is the worst thing a user of Linux can do. Don't look at the price, but think about which operating system you want to support. Buy the Linux version, even though it's more expensive or you already own the Windows version.

I also hate the Linux releases of games like Doom 3, Quake 4 and Prey. I don't want a downloadable installer, because I don't want to support Windows, so I don't want to buy the Windows version. I want to support Linux and I want to buy a native Linux version.

Ontopic:
In the Windows times I and a friend of mine always played Worms World Party. If this game would be released for Linux we would both buy the game at the day it gets released.

Normally I want the newest version of games, instead of old games. Windows has all those impressive looking games with great physics and sounds and such. Linux has older games with old graphics and such (I completely understand you don't have the money for expensive new games).

For Worms it's completely different. I don't need those new versions. If there'll ever be a Worms game for Linux, please let it be an old version. Those new 3D version of Worms aren't any fun. Some games just have to be 2D and Worms is one of them.

Originally Posted by tuke81

Great work Svartalf, any news about upcoming shadowground survivors? It seems to stalled in beta stage.

I also want to know. I was really looking forward to buy this game on the 30th of March. Is there any new about the current status? Any new release date?

Originally Posted by tuke81

Oh and how about the Iron Sky, just curious becouse it will be developed by the same studio that start to make port for Shadowgrounds survivors...

Wow, that sounds really impressive. Sounds like it could be a really nice game.